What are peoples thoughts on this new CP plan replacing the CP register. Is it a way forward to working together without the stigma of the chid being placed on the register or is it the governments way of hiding the rising figures in child abuse across the country?

I've been in one last week and it is realy the same thing, just a change in name. Perhaps, we need to wait and see what's the diffence.

Do you think the numbers are rising or is the threshold for intervention geting inceasingly lower?

Its a little confusing as most parents/ grandparents  I have dealt with  talk about the "at risk register". Its just messing about with labels, it does not mean extra rescources for parents/ carers  to assit them to help with the care of their children. Further its not extra support for Teachers/ School Nurses etc to understand the safeguarding process.

 I think its the government "faffing about" and not coming up with anything new. Am I being negative?

That's an interesting point Harmony and one that the newspapers seem to have picked up on this week.

 It's almost certain that the threshold has lowered, 10 years ago you would not consider a child at risk of 'significant harm'  if they missed a dental appointment or the parents property needed a little TLC, any child is a qualifying child under the new thresholds.

I think back to my very positive childhood and wonder how many of my friends would be classed as suffering significant harm and yet most are professionals today, with happy and healthy families of their own.

Schrodes Cat, I don't know in which LA you work but certainly in my LA we do not register children becuase they have missed a dental appot. this certainly does not even met the criteria for child in need. we would talk to the school nurse/health visitor and see what they have done to help the family to attend their health appot. As a social worker I will struggle to deal with a case like this as child protection. In my LA, it's other professionals who tend to consider cases like this as child protection, we are now collocated and we, social worker, have raise their awareness about what constitute significant harm. We have situation when a health visitor and a nursery nurse have come back from a home visit and have made a referral because of the home conditions (and in informal conversations they have said "these children should be removed"). When we have visited, we have found that the home conditions are adequate but not to the standards of white middle class (upper class too) female health professionals. This kind of referrals have now gone down a bit and they are referred to family support services instead which is a service which is not part of the LA and therefore does not work within a child protecion framework (this service does not work with families in which there is child protection issues)

Hello Rosa,

 When speaking of the 'dental' issue I was referring to the threeshold for 'significant harm' being too low, if you read through the guidelines any child would fit into the 'significant harm' catagory at sometime or at some stage in their upbringing, no parent, no matter who they are, or how clued up they are can claim to be spot on in every aspect of their child's upbringing.

Harmony asked if the threeshold was too low and I hve had many conversations with other professionals who agree that exact point.

I believe the 'daily mail' was making the same point over the weekend.

The guidelines are not exactly tailor made, more a broad spectrum.

And I quite agree your point that SW's are the voice of reason where 'other' agencies are involved, I have found this to be true on many occassions especially when dealing with Cafcass and Guardians.

I'm not sure whether there is necessarily anything sinister about why the government has done away with the CP Register in the sense you describe (although I wouldn't put it past them) but I'm not convinced it was about losing the stigma either. I think that the CP Plan fitted into their vision for the ICS better than the idea of a CP Register, it is after all the Plan that protects and not the Register. However, just to contradict myself somewhat, one of the main functions of the ICS is to ensure easy and quick audit which fits nicely into the government's transformational government agenda which, to a great extent, seems to be showing itself as a way of surveilling and controlling the workforce and the public over and above making life better for them.

 My concern is that making a decision that a child should have a CP Plan could be an 'easier' decision to make than deciding whether their name should be on a register and therefore not necessarily the right one. I have no evidence to back this up as such, it's just a concern that I have based on my own observations of how it may have impacted on conference decision-making

 As to the definition of 'significant harm' and whether it is too broad, I'm not convinced that the categories in 'Working Together' that seek to define significant harm are necessarily too broad but I would support the view that they are often interpreted too broadly. Certainly much of my time appears to be spent convincing other professionals to have a sense of proportion with regards to their concerns and to be clear about what they mean rather than just jumping up and down and using the words 'at risk' (whatever that means). Perhaps this just reflects our increasingly risk-averse society and the growth in state intervention......

 Rosa, on another note, you mentioned that you are now co-located. Does this mean that you now share an office/site with other agencies? Are you in a multi-agency team?